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Author Topic: [H|95%|YAVP] Complaint: Whizkid isn't consistently practical  (Read 3201 times)

ChaoticJosh

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--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (v.0.9.9.1) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Gunny, level 11 Imp Corporal, defeated the Cyberdemon
 on level 25 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 1028424 turns and scored 151786 points.
 He played for 2 hours, 35 minutes and 6 seconds.
 He wasn't afraid to be hurt plenty.

 He killed 656 out of 690 hellspawn. (95%)
 He held his right to remain violent.


-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Champion Medal
  Reaper Gold Badge

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #.............###..........................................
  #.............###.......###......###.......................
  #.............###.......###......###.......................
  #.......................###......###.......................
  #......................................................###.
  #......................................................###.
  #.............................................###......###.
  #.......................###...................###..........
  #.......................###.........###.......###..........
  #....X..}...............###.........###....................
  #...................................###.............###....
  #..........###................###...................###....
  #..........#>#....###.........###...................###....
  #..........###....###.........###..........................
  #.................###......................................
  #..........................................................
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 38/70   Experience 51974/11
  ToHit Ranged +4  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Tough as nails   (Level 3)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Badass           (Level 1)

  Fin->Jug->Fin->EE->TaN->TaN->Bad->TaN->EE->Iro->Iro->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [a] [ Armor      ]   modified red armor [4/4] (101%) (B)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   modified BFG 9000 (10d8) [90/130] (B1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   modified steel boots [1/1] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   modified nuclear BFG 9000 (8d9) [11/40] (P1)

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    [a] modified assault shotgun (7d3) [8/8] (B1)
    [b] modified missile launcher (6d6) [4/4] (T1)
    [c] combat translocator (0d0) [60/60]
    [d] Grammaton Cleric Beretta (2d6) [18/18]
    [e] modified red armor [4/4] (158%) (B)
    [f] Angelic Armor [0/7] (0%)
    [g] shotgun shell (x70)
    [h] rocket (x4)
    [i] power cell (x65)
    [j] power cell (x70)
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] phase device
    [o] homing phase device
    [p] homing phase device
    [q] thermonuclear bomb

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    89 former humans
    106 former sergeants
    51 former captains
    114 imps
    52 demons
    88 lost souls
    23 cacodemons
    45 barons of hell
    1 Cyberdemon
    24 hell knights
    14 arachnotrons
    15 former commandos
    6 pain elementals
    14 arch-viles
    3 mancubi
    9 revenants
    2 bruiser brothers

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 4 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 11 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 15 he encoutered the Phobos Hellgate.
  On level 22 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 22 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 24 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  Then at last he found Phobos Arena!
  On level 25 he finally defeated the Cyberdemon.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 Fire -- Choose target... 
 Fire -- Choose target...   The missile hits the Cyberdemon.
 Fire -- Choose target...   The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon
 reloads his rocket launcher.
 Fire -- Choose target...   The missile hits the Cyberdemon.
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 Fire -- Choose target... 
 You reload the BFG 9000 with power cell. The Cyberdemon fires! You are hit!
 The Cyberdemon reloads his rocket launcher.
 Fire -- Choose target... 
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 Fire -- Choose target...   The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon
 dies. You feel relatively safe now. Congratulations! You defeated

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 Before him 4 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 1 of those was killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.

 Some rumours though, say that the Cyberdemon was killed already!
 Is he immortal? 2 souls claim to have killed him...
 1 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 1 killed the bastard and survived.

--------------------------------------------------------------

This was a really good run. I got more more exotics than I normally do, and I was able to use them to great effect. Completed Mortuary, something I'm not able to do very often, which was alot of fun. I like that there's two guaranteed exotics in there, but it's unfortunate that the game is almost done by the time you get them, so you can't get their maximum usefulness.

I usually employ an extremely tanky build with TaN and ironman maxed out, complemented with some EE and Intuition for good measure. However, I thought I'd go a slightly different path today, the path of whizkid. Picking up some finesse and juggler, I position myself with only needing one level to get whizkid. I put it off though, thinking "Oh, I'll wait until I pick up some mod packs, and THEN I'll get whizkid so I don't go wasting a level on something that isn't immediately useful", and so I progress along my usual tanky build. Levels upon levels pass, and I can't find ANY mod packs. It's only until levels 24 and 25 that I find a couple, but by that time I HARDLY care.

So, in short, I never get whizkid because I never deem it useful. So while whizkid might be a good trait in theory, in practice it seems that it enjoys very little practical use due to the component that it's based around, the mod packs, are too rare to warrant building a strategy around. Now, I'm something of an experienced player, and if memory serves this pattern isn't exclusive to this run, and so I take this assumption to be accurate.

Does anyone else have any imput on the matter?
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Polymeron

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Re: [H|95%|YAVP] Complaint: Whizkid isn't consistently practical
« Reply #1 on: April 06, 2010, 23:06 »

I like Juggler and Finesse in their own right... And usually after the first two levels I'm so packed full of mods that I feel I have to race for Whizkid or I'd have to just throw them on the ground, a criminal waste. I often can't get these levels fast enough and end up walking around with 3-4 mods and nothing good to use them on.
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ChaoticJosh

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Re: [H|95%|YAVP] Complaint: Whizkid isn't consistently practical
« Reply #2 on: April 06, 2010, 23:55 »

You must be playing a different game than me then, because mod packs for me only appear about once every 5 levels, if the game's feeling generous.

Heck, I've even taken up the habit of completing Hell's Arena to get the rocket launcher, and then using that to get the hidden agility packs in the Chained Court, just because I have such tough luck getting an agility pack normally.

I don't know what you use your mod packs on though, as I use mine quickly and judiciously, with a zero hoarding mentality. If I see one, I'm picking it up and using it immediately unless there's some very important, very specific function it might serve in the future, which is usually quickly resolved anyhow. What I mean is, I'll comb through my weapons, armors, and boots, and then decide on the spot if one of them could use a mod, because I stubbornly refuse to let the little guys clutter up my precious inventory space on a 'what if' scenario.

I do agree with you on one thing though, juggler is pretty sweet.
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Tavana

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Re: [H|95%|YAVP] Complaint: Whizkid isn't consistently practical
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2010, 03:10 »

There are a few of the special levels that are guaranteed to have mod packs on them. Some of them are hidden though...

Whizkid's usefulness can depend on the RNG, though.
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ChaoticJosh

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Re: [H|95%|YAVP] Complaint: Whizkid isn't consistently practical
« Reply #4 on: April 07, 2010, 12:38 »

Exactly, my point is validated. Thank you.

Just to prove your point though, on mods being present on the various special levels, I looked at the wiki (assuming it's accurate) and here are the various mods which are available on a normal (not a challenge) game:

Chained Court: 2 agility mod packs
Hell's Armory: 1 agility mod, 1 power mod, 1 bulk mod
Mortuary: 1 power mod, 1 bulk mod (it should be noted that the mods are in separate corners, making getting both very difficult)

So, assuming you enter all these and obtain all the mods therein, that's 7 mods. I like to think it of it as 6 though, as you'll pretty much always use one of those agility mods on a pair of boots, which doesn't require any fancy traits at all. Also, you might not use the bulks on weapons at all, as using them on armors is much more appealing, so now it's more like 4 mods: 2 power and 2 agility. You might be able to make a really good, single weapon with those, provided you had the foresight to even go for whizkid in the first place, and that you had the good fortune for Hell's Armory to even appear AND that you had the stones to tackle the Mortuary just for those two mods.

With this in mind, I suppose that you'd be able to semi-consistently build a 1 power/2 agility plasma rifle before the mortuary considering that Hell's Armory had the good fortune of appearing, with the 1 level of whizkid which the ammochain master trait requires. With ammochain, sticking with the one plasma rifle, and funneling all other mods you get courtesy of the RNG is practical. In any other build though, which requires that you be adaptable and well-prepared, leaves you with a scarce amount of mods providing the RNG is being stingy as it usually is. So, in my mind, it's not consistently practical, which invalidates it's existence as a trait. I don't think I need to tell you that this, in my mind, is a problem.

Back when the advanced weapons were still around, I'd look at mortems that used them in conjunction with Whizkid to give them an OBSCENE number of mods. Looking at this, I could only think "Man, what sort of Wiccan witchcraft did they use to get the RNG to give them the exact advanced weapon they needed AND all the mods they needed in a single run?", just because in all my playing of the previous version, I had never encountered a similar scenario. Something requiring brute force repetition to get exactly what you may need in a run isn't exactly what I'd call balanced as far as traits go.

I'll probably make a thread about this, as this isn't a perfectly appropriate place to discuss this.
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